Shifting worlds
by Izumi1909
Summary: Two realities, one of which was created to keep Tuuri alive. A young mage from one gets trapped in the other, unbeknownst to her guardians who are dealing with a new anti-troll system that is crippling mages as well. All used as a pretext for a third story in the "Second chances" verse.
1. Stranded

**Chapter 1: Stranded**

She has no choice but to face the situation she was in. The passage was closed, the spell she had used to open it in the first place wasn't working, and she was stuck on the side of it on which she wasn't supposed to be. What was going to happen if she didn't wake up in the morning? Lalli was definitely going to check on her, and notice she wasn't in her safe area. Even if Lalli managed to bring her back to where she belonged, both he and her parents were going to be furious at her. She had promised them that she would be on her best behavior in Mora, but in the end, she hadn't been able to keep herself from trying out some of the more powerful spells from Lalli's notes, on the off-chance one of them would help solve her problem a little sooner. One of those spells had turned out to open a passage to a place that she was probably never meant to see, which had only made it more exciting to visit. Having the voices of the trapped ones go completely quiet for the first time in more than a year while she was there had been an extra bonus. Tears rolled out of her eyes as she informed the actual owner of the safe area she was currently in of the situation:  
-I can't leave. The spell isn't working, and I _know_ it's the right one. I made sure to learn it in case something like that happened. Someone is going to need to come and get me, and they will find out I've been coming here.  
Her "aunt" came to kneel at the edge of the river next to her and put a hand on her shoulder:  
-At least, you're trapped somewhere safe. I've been told that mages sometimes get cast out of their safe areas and become lost forever. But we should really let your Lalli know you're here, in case he doesn't figure it out on his own. Is it okay if I tell Reynir so he can tell our Lalli?  
She hadn't met this world's Lalli yet but had heard enough about him from her "aunt" to be aware that he was in contact with the Lalli she knew, via a connection of sorts between their minds. She also realized that as uneasy as she was about the idea of facing Lalli and her parents, she liked the idea of being stuck in the mind of her "aunt" even less. She nodded in response to the question. Her "aunt" disappeared, having woken up.

Even after a month of visiting regularly, she still had trouble keeping track of how the adults she knew were paired in this other reality. Some, including her own parents, were still with the same people. Others were with different people entirely, but still good friends with the person who was their spouse in her own world. Fortunately, if one ignored the half-dozen of apparently interchangeable children Emil's cousins had produced between them, her own generation's situation was easier to remember. Janine had been born earlier and fathered by someone else. Her own younger brother had been born at the time he should have been but was still a baby because this reality was five years late on her own. She, herself, hadn't been born. The best guess she and her "aunt" had been able to come up with between them was that it had something to do with the fact that her parents had married later in this reality, even when accounting for the five-year discrepancy. The realization had been hard to stomach for both of them at the time, even though they had found Lalli unlikely to have seen that particular situation coming when he had arranged for his desired divergence between the two realities. In the end, that hadn't kept her and her "aunt" from wanting to spend time together, albeit with a few newly-established rules about what information they could spontaneously share with each other. On her side, it had mostly meant doing her best to avoid mentioning any long-term situation that was less than five years old. However, the realization had also made them even more certain that anyone finding out about her visits would promptly put a stop to them. Even with the rules in place, they had found endless things to tell each other about, be it something they had done during the past few days or the books they had read.

As she started getting cold, she got up from the river's edge and quickly found her "aunt's" military skald quarters. Her "aunt" was very far away from them in the real world, and missed them greatly, despite the fact that she had come to her current location with the intention of it becoming her new home. She personally didn't mind, as the situation gave her the only accessible place where she could fully escape the voices of the trapped ones, with the extra bonus of the familiarity of Keuruu's civilian quarters. Her "aunt's" quarters weren't very far away from the house in which she had grown up with her father, mother and little brother, but she now knew better than to try to go in there. The way it was arranged, to accommodate two parents and a baby instead of a family of four physically autonomous individuals, made for too radical a reminder of the fact that she was both an intruder and a time-traveler of sorts in this reality. By the time the stove had started doing its job warming up the room, she heard her "aunt" calling her from outside. She opened the door and peeked outside:  
-Over here! I put the oven on!  
Her "aunt" came into the room, two familiar-looking men in tow. The long-braided green-eyed redhead who could only be this reality's version of Reynir stared at her wide-eyed, while this reality's version of Lalli, dressed in scouting gear instead of the nicer clothes in which she was used to seeing him, looked at her with a complete lack of surprise. He was the first of the three to speak to her:  
-He should really get a more recent photo of you. I didn't realize that you were already that old. I'm afraid I have bad news for you. My own connection to your world has vanished during the night. I don't know the exact time because I was working when it happened. I never bothered finding out how he made it in the first place, but I live near a library that will be much more helpful for fixing your problem than any place Tuuri can easily get to right now. I will need you in my safe area to help me.  
Once she had processed what she had been told, accepting this Lalli's offer came across as her best option so far. However, she was surprised that _any_ version of Lalli would care so little about his connection to another reality as to not want to find out how it was working. Her "aunt" had once pointed out that the passage had technically been imposed upon the version of Lalli who hadn't created it, but still.

While crossing the dream-sea, she was told to stay right behind Reynir and step on the water ripples he left behind him, but to do so quickly because they faded fast. It was only when she got to the swamp in which the closest thing to solid ground was a duckwalk that turned out to be this Lalli's safe area that she realized she hadn't thought things through. And of course, the voices of the trapped ones were back, if faded compared to when she was awake in her own body. This was due to Lalli being in a Keuruu with a smaller surrounding cleansed area than her own, but also from a time at which her magical hearing wasn't as sensitive. The duckwalk led to small pond with a circle-shaped raft floating on it. The way the raft was built caused its center to be hollow. Lalli pointed at the water visible through the hollow center of the raft:  
-This is where my passage to your world used to be. I'd rather have it there again if we end up having to re-build it ourselves.  
She nodded. She only noticed Reynir was still present when he spoke:  
-Do you mind if I come here to check on her from time to time, so Tuuri doesn't get too worried?  
Lalli promptly answered:  
-Go ahead. You may even need to bring her back to Tuuri's place if we don't manage to get her back to her world soon. I don't think having her here more than two days in a row will be good for either of us, and I'd like to fix this without Onni or Cecilia ever seeing her if I can.  
Lalli then turned to her:  
-I hope you understand and are okay with this.  
She nodded again. She already knew of the side-effect her presence in this place was going to have on Lalli, and she didn't particularly want to run into this reality's version of her parents either. Reynir gave his farewell and left. She fully realized that this was the first time she was having more than a quick glance at Reynir's upper body when she noticed the empty right sleeve that had somehow escaped her attention so far, despite her "aunt" having told her about it. She was soon alone on the raft with Lalli:  
-I need to wake up and explain to a few people who know of your world why I'm going to need some time off from work. We'll go to the library after that. Bye.  
Lalli vanished.

Emil hadn't exactly planned to stay up all night, but fate had had other ideas. As shops in Mora were starting to open and a few workers were leaving their houses, he was going back to the small one he and Lalli had been pressured to move into when the newly appointed general in charge of the cleansers had found out who they were and decreed that it was unacceptable for "such important people" to be living in a small apartment. Lalli had been reluctant at first but been won over by the garden with a healthy tree in it. Having a room that was Lalli's study, and only Lalli's study, had been an extra argument in favor of moving. However, by the standards of Lalli's side of the family, the house was big enough to allow them to take in Onni's ten-year-old daughter who had very suddenly needed to be moved out of Keuruu almost a couple months ago. Emil had ended up getting along with her surprisingly well, and Lalli, in spite of his own obvious soft spot for her, kept insisting that it was only because of the tolerance he had built up when his cousins were younger. As he came into the kitchen, he realized it gave no sign of having been used recently. One of the girl's saving graces was that she was usually able to take care of herself in the morning without leaving too much of a mess, and always looked forward to going to school. Emil found her still asleep in her bedroom, and gently tried to rouse her by shaking her shoulder:  
-Hey, Tuuri, wake up, you're going to be late for school.  
After doing everything he could think of to wake her up and not seeing her move a single muscle that wasn't required to breathe, he decided to get her to the hospital as quickly as he could, suddenly feeling like a tremendous idiot for not having checked on her before leaving. This couldn't be happening. He had just come back from the hospital after taking Lalli there the previous night.

xxxx

Tuuri's state was deemed even more inexplicable than Lalli's, as the doctor found nothing wrong with her. Even in the half-dazed state he was in at this point, Emil figured out what that meant: her reckless attempts to perform magic she wasn't ready for during her sleep had finally caught up with her. Emil went to see Lalli to share that information with him after Tuuri got admitted into the hospital. Lalli replied that he was too weak to leave his own safe area, which made it impossible for him to check on Tuuri's actual situation. They briefly considered that Tuuri's state could be the cause of Lalli's rather than what Emil had come to suspect the previous evening, quickly agreeing that actually checking on her would be required to get confirmation either way. He and Lalli agreed to get another mage to check on Tuuri. The first step was to look for any mages who could be temporarily staying in Mora or the rest of Sweden, as they would be closer than their usually trusted quartet of Onni, Cecilia, Reynir and Helena. Emil was going to need to have a second talk with the people behind the new radio wave-based anti-troll system, whose answers the previous night upon being asked to turn their equipment off had entered two broad categories: "you can't prove our defense system has anything to do with that man's condition" and "we don't see the problem with our system being possibly anti-Finn in addition to anti-troll". He realized he was going to walk quite close to the school on his way to Mora's military headquarters and decided to go tell the headmistress that Tuuri wasn't going to be able to attend school for at least the next couple of days while he was in the area.

As he arrived in front of the school, he found the headmistress there, talking with a dozen of other people he recognized as parents he had seen around the school before. He decided to stand nearby while waiting for them to finish. From the dregs of conversation that he picked up, he eventually realized that all twelve of the parents had a child that had either been kept home, or that the headmistress was trying to send home, for the same reasons: complaints about a constant ringing sound inside their heads giving them headaches. He was too tired to find a polite way to approach this, and he needed to know:  
-Excuse me, but when did all of your children go to sleep?  
All had gone to sleep before the time at which the radio-wave defense system was to be activated for the first time. He soon found out that the children's complaints about the ringing had started this very morning. He had all the parents give him their names and addresses, informed the headmistress that Tuuri was ill, told the other parents about Lalli's crippling headache, and got himself to headquarters as quickly as he could manage.


	2. Collateral damage

**Chapter 2: Collateral damage**

Once in the library, Lalli scanned the shelves and took each book that had looked like it could help either fix the spell or create a new one with the same function according to the younger Tuuri, whom he preferred to mentally call "Tuuri-Ensi" based on the middle name she had been given to keep his thoughts straight. After finding five of them, he took them to a table to read them. He quickly noticed Sven's presence at the table and greeted him. The pleasant surprise made things less tedious than he had feared they would be as left it to Tuuri-Ensi to spot the relevant information to note down while he turned the pages. The girl was first surprised, but fortunately had enough respect for his other world self to otherwise be completely fine doing her part of the work. The two of them were almost finished with their fifth book when the clock struck lunchtime. Sven closed his own book:  
-Lunch?  
He hadn't had lunch with Sven in a while. And strictly speaking, nothing would keep he and Tuuri-Ensi from catching up once the meal was finished.

He and Sven were soon in the civilian communal kitchen preparing food, and after that eating it on a bench outside due to the relatively warm and sunny day. That fact that he could still clearly hear trolls from outside the cleansed area surrounding the base, in spite of his own efforts to block them out, gave Lalli a good guess as to the reason Tuuri-Ensi had been sent to live in Mora, which had a much bigger surrounding cleansed area. Sven spoke, taking him out of his thoughts:  
-The library is one of the last places where I expected to run into you. Is the reason you were in there one you can tell me about?  
Lalli couldn't help but briefly think of the fact that he wished it was the case before giving the answer he was supposed to give to those who didn't know of the "real" world at all:  
-No. Magic stuff that is only mage business. And you? I thought you were waiting for news from the people in Saimaa and Mora and didn't need to work anymore in the meantime.  
-Even if they manage to reproduce my results, it won't be a lifetime's pay, far from it. I need to figure out what I'll be doing next. I've come to like this place, and I'd hate to have to leave because I have nothing to do here.  
Lalli didn't want Sven to go either, but also found he was working much harder than he actually needed to be able to stay in Keuruu. Lalli himself was no stranger to working himself to exhaustion, and because he knew what it felt like, he hated seeing Sven doing it, especially for something that wasn't going to get anyone killed if it took longer than originally planned. Actually, by definition, anyone who would benefit from his work wasn't born yet.  
-You worked hard on this, you should rest a little.  
-You'll be allowed to tell me that the day you get decent rest between a round of night scouting and spending the morning in the library.  
He had almost forgotten that the situation meant Sven also knew all too well what overworking oneself felt like.  
-I'll go to bed early tonight and tell you again to not work too hard tomorrow, then. But if you want a long-term job, you could always do some paperwork here. I keep hearing the skalds complaining about not having enough people when I hand my reports in.  
Sven stopped eating and stared at his almost-empty bowl while holding it a little harder than he needed to for a few moments before answering:  
-Is there a job where I won't be blamed for causing someone's death for wanting their name written correctly on an official form? You know I'm not joking about this.  
Lalli didn't dare get mad at Sven for not being over this particular event yet. He had trouble letting go of his own years-old mistakes, after all.  
-And I don't need to remind you that a badly written report can get people killed, also.  
-We can't say we didn't try to find the right middle ground a few months ago. All we got was the other scouts complaining about your reports making theirs look bad, and your reports still not being good enough for the skalds in charge of them.  
-Maybe the skalds should write the scout reports themselves while listening to the scouts telling them about what they saw. This way, they would be sure the reports are the way they like them.  
Sven, who had started eating again, seemed startled:  
-I wouldn't mind trying that next time you go out scouting, actually.  
-Guess I need to find what I'm looking for in the library fast, then.  
-Don't rush, especially if it means I get to have lunch with you more often until you're done.  
Lalli took his turn at his almost-empty bowl in silence for a few moments before answering:  
-I… would like to, but I'm not used to looking through a lot of books, and I was hoping to rest my mind a little while I was eating. If it wasn't you asking, I would have said no.  
-I see. You tell me if you want to have company for lunch anytime soon. I'll also be looking up things in the library for the next few days anyway, so I'll be within actual arm's reach if you have any trouble.

-Lieutenant Västerström!  
Emil was startled awake by the office assistant's voice. How long had he slept? He had intended to have only a short nap before going back to sorting this mess out. He got up from the office couch, arranged his hair, and looked around him, only to realize that the office assistant had one of the mothers from the school standing right behind him. Emil sat on the couch as to face her:  
-My apologies. I didn't get any sleep last night and I requested some information that was going to take a while to come, so I thought I would get a little rest in the meantime. Please take a seat.  
Emil gestured to his own desk, the only one in the room besides the captain's larger one to not be facing a wall and to have a chair on both sides. Both of them went to take their proper seats, and Emil accepted the papers handed to them by the office assistant once seated:  
-Thank you, Claes. Just a minute, Ma'am.  
He quickly scanned one of the papers given to him, penciled a cross next to two of the names, and gave it back to Claes:  
-Bring these two people here if you can. Should either of them be unable to come with you, ask them why. If they are both unable to come, check on everyone else until you find someone who can.  
Once Claes had left, the only other person in the office besides himself and the mother from the school was a female fellow officer named Tilda silently working at one of the desks pushed against the office walls. Emil quickly found the list he had made earlier and made sure of which name belonged to the woman with whom he was speaking before starting the conversation proper:  
-Am I correct to assume you would first like to hear the exact reason for which I approached you and the other parents?  
-Yes.  
-Someone made a large-scale anti-troll defense system using radio waves. Last night, at nine thirty, they started its first real-conditions testing on the farmland right outside the outer Mora walls. The general public wasn't informed, in case something didn't go as planned and to make sure that as few people as possible changed their habits because of it. Just a few minutes after it was to be activated, my husband came down with a headache so bad nothing we had at home could relieve it, and he soon became too nauseous to take pills anyway. I eventually took him to the hospital. The thing is that my husband is a Finnish mage. Believe what you want about magic, but one very real thing about Finnish mages is that whatever enables cats to sense trolls approaching before most humans do, they have it also to some extent. Whatever it is also makes them perceive radio frequencies that are outside of the hearing range of most people. A colleague of mine once mentioned that there are radio frequencies that can be heard by children, but not adults. When I overheard you and the other parents talking about the sounds your children were hearing, it was hard not to consider that they could have something to do with the new defense system as well.  
-But it would have to still be on for this to be the case, right? Didn't you get them to turn it off after what happened to your husband?  
-When I tried last night, my husband was the only person known to be possibly affected by this, so they didn't take well to me showing up in the middle of the night and asking them to turn it off in case it was the cause. I'll need something more solid if I'm going to ask them again. A few things they said also led me to think that they may be a little easier to convince them to do it if local children turn out to be affected as well.  
The woman sat pensive for a few moments before speaking again:  
-I see. I'll speak of this with the other parents and my husband. I do have a question for you, though. I remember you came to the headmistress to tell her that a child named Tuuri was not going to be able to attend the school for a couple days because she was in the hospital. Has she been hearing sounds as well?  
-She's a relative of my husband's who's staying with us to learn magic. Some of the… mental exercises can be extremely draining if undertaken while not ready for them. And by that, I mean "needing to rest for two days straight to recuperate" draining. She has been trying to do things a little beyond her current capacities behind my husband's back since day one and she's at an age where she won't quite understand why she's not supposed to do something unless she faces its consequences herself. While I would no longer completely rule out the defense system since it could be affecting both mages and children, what was diagnosed by the doctor is more in line with her trying to do exercises beyond her level again. I would need an actual mage to confirm this, but my husband is currently unable to do it. I was just sending Claes to check on the mages currently staying in town, both to see how they are doing an in hope one of them can help me with Tuuri. Ah, sorry, I'm kind of starting to ramble here.  
-I understand, you do seem to have a lot on your plate. I won't take any more of your time for now, unless there's something else you want to tell me.  
Emil took a piece of paper, scribbled a few words on it and handed it to the woman:  
-I'm technically a cleanser and just happened to be among those who were informed about the defense system. If you want to formally personally ask for the system to be turned off in case it has something to do with your son's state, this is the person you need to speak with first.  
-Thank you. I hope your family members get better soon.  
-I hope the same for your child.  
Once the woman was gone, Emil enquired about the absence of the three occupants of the office that he had last seen before the beginning of his nap. Tilda's answer, confirmed by the time indicated on the clock on the captain's desk, told him that he had missed the lunch break between his nap and his impromptu meeting.  
-Don't worry, they are bringing food back for us.  
-And what are you still doing here?  
-Some of the work you were supposed to do today. I understand that you must be worried about your husband and young cousin, but I think the captain won't mind you doing a little yourself if you have nothing more urgent to do, even if it's just to keep yourself busy until Claes comes back.  
This was all Emil needed to remember that he had yet to call Keuruu to make sure Onni and Cecilia were informed of their daughter's state.

xxxx

Claes didn't come back until it was almost time for those on the day shift to go home, alone:  
-I'm really sorry, lieutenant. Almost all the people you asked me to get claimed to be too sick or tired to come, and even I could tell that those who didn't were only pretending to be all right.  
-You don't need to apologize, you told me exactly what I wanted to know. Just to make sure I understood correctly, both the Finns and Norwegians were unable to come?  
-Yes. But someone did come back with me. A man travelling with one of the Finns sounded very interested when I mentioned that other mages in town were sick and insisted upon meeting you when I said I was checking on the mages in town on your orders. He wanted me to make sure he didn't interrupt any work you could be doing before speaking with you.  
-You can let him in.  
Claes beckoned the man who had been waiting in the hallway inside the room. Emil immediately recognized the coat as part of the civilian clothes given to people going on leave from Keuruu, which wasn't quite surprising in itself. What surprised him was the face sticking out of the collar, that he hadn't seen since his time in public school.  
-Emil Västerström. It's been a while.  
-Sven?


	3. Scapegoat

**Chapter 3: Scapegoat**

Lalli's entrance in his safe area after falling asleep was welcomed by an amused grin on Tuuri-Ensi's part.  
-Why are you smiling like that?  
-Auntie told me this world's Emil is married to Helena, and my world's Sven… ah, too recent for me to mention… let's just say that anyone with working eyes can figure out he's into guys in my time. The two of you looked kind of cute together during lunch.  
Lalli had figured out long ago that it was best to treat everyone in the "real" world as different people than those in his. He and his own other self had ended up different enough, after all. But at the same time, he wasn't sure what to make of the idea that there could be someone else that Sven could realistically end up with if things didn't work out between them, and that this someone likely lived in Keuruu if Tuuri-Ensi knew him. There had never been any competition between Lalli and Helena for Emil; his other self had taken him out any race there could have been as soon as he had made sure neither Tuuri nor him would be going on this world's first Silent World expedition. His mind fortunately found another element of Tuuri-Ensi's words to focus on:  
-"Auntie"?  
Tuuri-Ensi's somewhat apologetic grin had been replaced by an exaggeratedly… Tuuri-like pouting face:  
-Well, it felt kind of weird to call each other by our names. And she _is_ my aunt, in a way. Mom's relatives all live far away, so I don't exactly have one at home. Aren't we supposed to try new spells to open the passage back home?  
She had a point. _Someone_ in the "real" world must have noticed her absence from her safe area by now and be worried sick.

The good news was that some people besides Emil and Sven were acknowledging something was going on now that all ill children from the school, whose numbers had doubled since the morning, and transiting mages had been admitted into the hospital within a few hours of each other. The bad news was that the people in question were doctors or nurses who had lived through the Mora beast invasion of 96, and hence had their mind set on the phenomenon being a possible new epidemic rather than something that could have anything to do with the radio-wave based defense system. Strictly speaking, Emil had no reason to protest the possibility. The bad news came from the fact that anyone living with the patients was being quarantined as a precaution, regardless of their immunity to the Rash. The only small blessing in all this was that his room and Sven's shared the same thin wall; after listening to what Emil had to say, Sven had agreed that the new defense system could be responsible for the state of their "respective Finnish mages" per his own words, which had comforted him a little in the face of the epidemic-minded medical personnel. The reason for which Sven's name was now semi-recognizable in conversation meant that he actually knew and understood more about Finnish magic than Emil did, which made him a good support to have. Unfortunately, the only piece of the larger picture either of them was entitled to beyond what they had each already found out prior to being put in quarantine was the current state of their husbands, and, in Emil's case, Tuuri. Emil's mind almost froze again. The term "Sven's husband" couldn't stop feeling like something unreal to him. As far as he had been able to tell, Sven hadn't shown romantic interest in _anyone_ when they had gone to school together.  
-Lieutenant!  
Emil recognized Claes's voice coming out from outside his room. He turned his head to the large window that made up most of his small room's front wall to see the boy there and greeted him.  
-We got a message for you from one Onni Hotakainen. "I can't get in without being overwhelmed. I only made it out by turning back moments after I got in. Do you know if Norwegians and Icelanders from outside are having similar problems?". He said to just tell you that, and that you'd understand what it means.  
-If he's expecting an answer, tell him I don't know yet. But this also means I need you to contact someone else.  
He gave Claes Sigrun's contact information and told him to ask her if the Norwegian mages knew anything about what was going on in Mora. As soon as Claes left, Sven spoke:  
-There is still something that puzzles me about what you told me earlier. Why would the people behind that defense system _not_ consider the possibility that it could be hurting Finns a problem?  
Emil let out a resigned sigh before answering:  
-The product of your first year in Keuruu _was_ taken seriously by some people here, even though they won't admit to it. Unfortunately, some of them have reacted as if the exact moment they started believing magic was real was also the moment the entire population of Finland became able to cast spells, and the first thing they are going to do with that is invade Sweden. Or at the very least the second thing after cleansing their entire old territory within the next one to five years. Some of this has made it into the army, and I'm not talking only of the lower ranks. Some higher-ups are now considering banning all Finns from entering the country or trying to come up with a technological means to keep them from using their magic while they are in any kind of Swedish settlement. So, an anti-troll system that cripples them as well suddenly becomes extremely interesting to some people.  
Sven stayed silent for a few moments before speaking again:  
-And how many people know that a ten-year-old who is more powerful than many experienced adults is in town? And the reason she's here in the first place?  
This had been a worry in the back of both Emil's and Lalli's minds ever since Onni had put Tuuri in their care. However, their jobs first and foremost had been to be the people who were not scared of her and treated her like a normal non-immune ten-year-old to the extent to which they could afford to. The voices of the infected in the area surrounding Keuruu had become an endless cacophony to her, to the point of making her loose her grip on her powers, in spite of efforts to make better protective spells on the part of both her parents. Only putting a large distance between her and the Silent World seemed to have any kind of lasting positive effect when she was awake, but even Mora and its much larger surrounding cleansed area only reduced the cacophony to murmurs. Lalli's second job was making her skill progress faster than Onni or Cecilia ever could to get it on par with her power, along with figuring out a shielding spell that would keep her from being overwhelmed by the voices next time she ventured into a place in which they were louder. Emil's own second job had been to make sure that any higher up willing to listen about the subject without jumping to conclusions was aware of the situation, on the off-chance that Tuuri's combination of high power and low skill _did_ cause trouble again. But now that Sven had mentioned it, it was very hard to not start wondering what would happen if the situation led to the wrong people finding out that Tuuri had once rendered an entire military base speechless for a few hours in her own efforts to shush the voices of the infected.

After an entire evening of trying many variants of the spell Tuuri-Ensi has used to open the passage and couple of different spells that has looked like they could have the same effect, the two of them were no closer to opening a passage than they had been a few hours ago. Lalli ended the session when he saw Tuuri-Ensi starting to yawn, deciding that fatigue was the last that thing necessary in the precarious balance between the girl's powers and her innate capacity to keep them in check. He made the raft as comfortable for her as he could, using his fur cloak, realizing it may be better to just have her spend nights in Tuuri's safe area, which had real beds in it, in addition to its owner being in Iceland in the real world. He decided to have a little rest of his own when he realized he and the girl weren't alone. Reynir emerged from the swampy forest, treading the duckwalk at an unusually slow and hesitant pace compared to his usual visits. This could mean bad news for all Lalli knew of Reynir, so he mentally prepared for it and asked him the reason of his presence. Reynir's scattered answer only made things stranger:  
-How… is… she… here?  
Lalli noticed that he was looking at the sleeping Tuuri-Ensi.  
-Are you overtired or something? You brought her here early this morning.  
Reynir stayed silent for a few moments before speaking again:  
-Other… Mora… dangerous… for… mages… Going… back… now… bad… for… her…  
Reynir started toppling forward but vanished before reaching the ground.

Sven let himself relax a little for the first time in a couple of days as the medicine flowed from the syringe to his body. He knew the medical personnel was on the edge, but he couldn't believe it had taken so long for him to get the treatment for which he had come to Mora with Matti by his side, _while stuck in a hospital_. He hated thinking of how close the doctors and nurses had gotten to let a condition that was actually on his medical file in big red letters re-emerge because they where too distracted by the fact that he _could_ have something completely new. However, in what Matti called "the world's own way of working itself out", the fact that fixing the oversight about his treatment had required waking him up in the early hours of the morning allowed him to witness something that he was most likely not supposed to see from the corner of his eye. Soldiers using a stretcher rather than a noisy trolley, the content of the stretcher being both too small to be an adult and sporting braided hair that was a shade of blonde eerily similar to Cecilia Hotakainen's. While anything from her father was hard to spot, Matti regularly swore that she was growing into the spitting image of an aunt from that side of her family who had died a couple of years before her birth. Sven had never met the aunt in question, but Matti had happened to share a birthday with her when she was still alive, guaranteeing them to see each other in the communal dining area once a year.

xxxx

-And _why_ didn't you do anything?  
Emil sounded as furious as he had the right to be. Sven himself had trouble finding a term for what had been done to Tuuri that wasn't "outright kidnapping".  
-Considering the kind of effort they put into taking her away discreetly, I got the impression that giving any indication that I knew who she was would have resulted in me no longer being your next-door neighbor by the time you woke. When you see something that you shouldn't have, the timer onto you being silenced in some way starts as soon as you tell someone else. I thought it was best to keep that first divulgation for you.  
Emil took a little time to reply:  
-Uh… thanks for that, I guess. But that doesn't change the fact that _someone_ took her away who-knows-where in the early hours of the morning.  
-Your husband and yourself are those who let such a dangerous child inside the town, downplayed the threat she represented and tried to lay the blame on something else when your supervision turned out to be insufficient to keep her in check. She has been taken to one of the outposts in the cleansed area. Rest assured that she will be as comfortably housed as possible and well-guarded.  
This sounded awfully like she was being kept prisoner, as far as Sven was concerned. He couldn't see the man who was speaking to Emil, but he sounded like he was right in front of Emil's room. Emil was soon peppering the new arrival of various questions about the outpost, including how close it was to the edge of the cleansed area. As he listened to the answers, it didn't take long for Sven to realize that he had actually seen only seen the _second_ person that had been snuck out of the quarantine ward in the early morning.

That was really strange. Lalli and Tuuri-Ensi had wanted to make sure that they had tried all the options that they had found out about the previous day before he woke up and went back to the library. Their first try of the morning had been to add something at the end of the spell that Tuuri-Ensi had first used to open the passage. However, the passage had opened just as soon as Tuuri-Ensi had finished pronouncing the last syllable of the original spell whose failure to work the previous day had left her stranded in the first place. Between that and Reynir's strange warning, he told Tuuri-Ensi to stay in his area while he checked the other side of the passage. Lalli immediately found his other self lying on his side on the dream living room's floor, his back to the passage's opening, nowhere near any of the dream living room's good sleeping spots. Lalli slowly moved towards his other self, made sure it was really him, and tried to rouse him. His other self started moving:  
-Who…  
The handle of the living room door, near which Lalli's other self was lying, started to move. Lalli only had time to move his other self out of the way to keep the door from meeting his head before it opened, revealing a familiar, if a little older looking, mess of red hair:  
-Lalli, sorry to barge in like that again, but… what?  
It took Lalli a few moments to realize that the sight presenting itself to the other world's Reynir must be very surprising indeed.


	4. Revelations

**Chapter 4: Revelations**

The first time, Reynir could have mistaken the visions for simply dreaming about the boat trip back from the Silent World during the Year 90 expedition, if it hadn't been for the right arm he was blatantly missing in said dream. The fact that this had ended up being one of the _less_ strange things he had witnessed as he had continued having similar visions said a lot. Most of the time, he had been a spectator. However, once in a while, if his thoughts about something he was witnessing were strong enough, they would somehow make it out of the mouth of his other world self. But even then, occurrences had always been short enough to have been mistaken for a moment of distraction by those in the other world, and far between. Not very long after he had first seen the other world's Tuuri, he had discovered the true nature of what he was witnessing, and that the world in which she was still alive was something Lalli had created and tried to keep for himself. Reynir had also figured out the reason for which he was getting semi-regular glimpses of this other world in the first place upon remembering that his earliest visions had been of the time _following_ the fusion of the dream areas belonging to the other world's Reynir and Helena, which the two of them had come to Keuruu in the hope of undoing. Investigating whether the Helena with whom he'd had a daughter had been going through similar things without telling him about it all these years, which turned out to not be the case, had entailed Reynir telling her about his own situation. In the other world, there had eventually been a discussion of not letting the still-alive Tuuri know what was going on and feeding her the cover story that had been made up for those that required an explanation, regardless of whether it was the complete truth or not. Reynir's other world self had been naïvely about to agree, unaware of the consequences that lying to a Hotakainen could have. And if there was another version of him who was getting a chance at something long-term with the Tuuri who was Onni's sister rather than his daughter, Reynir was going to make sure that it didn't get ruined by something that he could nudge his other self into avoiding. The real fights with legitimate reasons, he had let happen if they occurred while he was "watching" and kept out of. All this time, he has told nobody besides Helena about it, not even Lalli, and let his other world self mistake his nudges and occasional seeping emotions for extremely strong gut feelings. The situation had gained an extra layer of complication the previous morning, when he had seen the Tuuri from his world in the other Tuuri's safe area, dropped out of the vision right when the decision of taking her to the other Lalli's safe had been made and been at a loss as to what to do with the knowledge. The first idea that he had been able to act on without any hesitation was to wait for the next vision to come and use it to make sure Tuuri didn't leave the other world until people figured out what, exactly, was afflicting the mages that were currently in Mora. The second thing that had sounded like a good idea had been to go tell Onni about Tuuri's presence in the other world. Upon passing by the south of Mora, he had noticed that there were two safe areas on his path, one of which belonged to Lalli.

Once he had found out how and why Tuuri had been stranded in the other world in the first place, Lalli had decided to escort her back to her safe area and have a talk with her there, leaving Reynir alone with the other Lalli in the process. After a few minutes of silence, the other Lalli spoke:  
-It was you last night.  
-Yes.  
-It looks like whatever problem you were trying to tell me about went away.  
-I don't think it did. There's still something strange going on in Mora, but these two are outside of the town for some reason. My best guess is that someone moved them far away enough for them to be no longer affected. But the only way we'll know is if one of these two wakes up and finds up what's happening. I'm going need to go on shift soon though, so I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to wait. What about you?  
-I have time off until I fix the problem. Only a few people know the real reason. I'll just need to let them know I don't need it anymore before tonight. And there's a… friend who may get worried if don't show up at the library by noon.  
-What enabled me to warn you last night also gave me a lot of knowledge in common with the me from your world. It's a little random, but it happens often enough that I know about Sven. No need to dodge the subject around me.  
Lalli came back much sooner than Reynir expected and placed himself directly in front of his other self:  
-Thanks bringing Tuuri back. She told me what she could about the passage closing and your trouble re-opening it. Who in your world knows of her?  
-The people I needed to tell to get time off to go to the library to help her. I only told them that she was your apprentice and didn't give her name. Onni doesn't know. My Juha is still a baby, so a few days or weeks can go by before he notices anything unusual in my schedule, and I was hoping to have her back here before he did.  
-Good. But this also means people are going to expect you to be awake in the morning. You'd better head back before someone comes looking for you. We obviously need to speak about what to do now that we can be in the same safe area at the same time. When can you come?  
-Next time I'm sleeping. But it looks like _you_ have something to deal with right now, so you tell me when you're ready.  
The other Lalli left by the passage, which had managed to appear right in the center of the room's circular rug. Lalli turned to Reynir:  
-Now, you. The first thing I need to know the exact nature of your connection to the other world.

xxxx

The extent to which Reynir had nudged his own other world self into entering and maintaining a relationship with the other world's Tuuri had become a lesser worry to Lalli in just a few hours. He and Tuuri had been taken to an outpost outside Mora under the orders of someone who had apparently convinced themselves that Tuuri's coma had meant that she had something to do with the current state of the mages staying in town and a bunch of children. That person seemed unable to accept the fact that he and Tuuri respectively getting better and waking up was an argument in favor of the radio-wave defense system being responsible for their state. Lalli wasn't sure whether that person and his interrogator were one and the same or not. It didn't change the fact that whoever that man was had decided Lalli was faking his distress at being talked to as if he had done something wrong and his claims that he hadn't used magic to harm anyone in town. The man didn't like it, which resulted in Lalli finding himself even more unable to speak or pretend he wasn't terrified.

It took Lalli a while to realize that he was no longer in his bed in the outpost, but back in his safe area. Had he passed out? He really hoped it would at least convince someone that he hadn't been faking the hyperventilation. He unfortunately felt that getting an interrogator who would speak to him nicely enough for him to be able to actually answer the questions without being suspected of lying because of something in his tone or body language was a longshot. He had become somewhat good at being communicative in friendly contexts, where smalls blunders on his part would be excused, but more hostile ones still threw him for a loop, especially situations where people were more than willing to read his blunders as "suspicious behavior". His attempts to keep it together during the interrogation had demanded so much energy that he was only now sparing any kind of thought on how they were treating Tuuri. What was going to take precedence? Her age or the fact that they were persuaded that she was behind all this mess? He really wished Emil was here. He could really use the comfort and how he somehow managed to overall stay on the army's good side. He realized that he didn't know of Emil's whereabouts either, and hoped he was still in Mora and wasn't being hurt in any way. Meanwhile, he wasn't sure how he was supposed to get himself and Tuuri out of their mess without accidentally proving that the part of the Swedish military that was terrified of magic right. Given the circumstances, getting some extra rest before facing the physical world again felt like the best short-term option.

xxxx

By the time Lalli had regained enough strength to wake up more or less ready for what came next, it was close to the time to give him dinner. The man who brought him his meal introduced himself as the person who'd been talking to Tuuri, apologized for how he'd been treated so far and sat on a nearby chair while Lalli ate. Near the end of the meal, Lalli remembered some of the questions he'd been asked, and spontaneously answered those that seemed reasonable, hoping it would help somehow. The man looked at him wide-eyed:  
-This is… much more than I expected to get out of you. I promise you won't be bothered again before tomorrow morning.

He'd had the sentiment that his commanding officer was barking up the wrong tree from the beginning and speaking with the two "not prisoners" was confirming it. This meant that they were detaining civilians in an outpost outside of town for a reason that boiled to the people behind the new defense system being so stubborn about refusing to turn it off that they were using some of the very people who were being affected by it as scapegoats. Neither of the "not prisoners" had denied Finns having magic, but young Tuuri had pointed out a detail that neither his commanding officer, nor his colleagues among those willing to believe in magic had seemed to stop to consider: that if their magic didn't have various limits to its use, Finns wouldn't need Sweden's help for cleansing their land. She had also confirmed the story about her doing something in Keuruu being true, and deeply regretting the incident. She had also tearfully told him that there were beds ready for her on the farmsteads of family friends in both Denmark and Iceland, and that she was willing to move to any of them if people if the Mora military _really_ didn't want her in town. He felt he _had_ to do something and knew nobody would miss him if he left during the night.

xxxx

It was only after being detained for half a day that he found out that his sabotage had worked. He also quickly found out that all the ill children were recovering, including his son. That alone made it worth it. He still hoped that it would somehow help the "not prisoners" go back to their home and get any charges his commanding officer had against them lifted.

Lalli's conversation with Sven ended up being much shorter than he would have wanted, between the tiring events of the last two days and the fact that he and Matti had a train to catch. It had still been sweet of Emil to remember that Sven's name had been on a lot of the papers Lalli had been reading over the past year and arrange for the two of them to formally meet before Sven had to go back to Keuruu.  
-You know, Matti and I will be back here in three months. Maybe we could arrange for a proper meeting then.  
-It's good idea, as long as it doesn't get in the way of what will be bringing you here in the first place.  
-Don't worry about that. A medical treatment I've been needing for the past year is only available in Mora and needs to be renewed once every three months, so I planned part of the leave to which I'm entitled for trips here. Once the injection is done, all we have is time to kill.  
Lalli was about to ask Sven what kind of treatment it was, when he realized that he knew of a medical treatment that fitted the criteria that he had mentioned and had become available to the public a little more than a year and a half ago. This Sven was wearing his hair much longer that his younger other world counterpart, gathered into a loose ponytail right over the right side of his neck. Lalli had noticed the fact upon meeting him but had yet to actually look at the part of his face it was more or less hiding. It _did_ leave some kind of scar behind. The treatment must be working well indeed for Sven to read as not being sick at all to Lalli's mage senses. He quickly realized that companionship probably wasn't the only reason Matti was tagging along. He immediately made the decision to not ask how, exactly, it had happened. If he knew, he was going to have a hard time _not_ keeping excessive tabs on the other world's Sven. The bell announcing the last call for any passengers wishing to board the train rang, requiring them to part on an agreement to communicate further by mail. As Sven and Matti boarded the train, Lalli gave the latter an understanding pat on the arm. Matti answered it:  
-That kid back in 96 only got a week. A year is already much more than what I was expecting when he got bitten.  
Tuuri had been four and still living in Keuruu the day that kid had been bitten in Mora. Lalli had had something to be grateful for as well, that day. Lalli found Tuuri and Emil on one of the train station's benches, getting a head start on their household's plans for the day after seeing Sven and Matti off. He woke them and suggested they all continue such activities in their own home.


	5. New arrangement

**Chapter 5: New arrangement**

Sebastian still wasn't sure whether what his father had did was good or bad. Half his classmates were either refusing to play with him or forbidden to do so by their parents, while the other half claimed that his father had done something great. The opinion was shared by the one net gain in his number of friends, who was one of the people his father was supposed to have helped. One of Tuuri's uncles – actually her father's cousins – had explained to Sebastian's mother what being a "mage" tended to entail, regardless of whether one believed magic to be real or not. Sebastian himself wasn't sure whether to believe in magic or not, but so far hadn't found his indecisiveness to keep him from being friends with Tuuri. Tuuri had admitted to liking it this way, as those who had their mind made up about it either used it as an excuse to avoid her or wanted to be her friend for that reason and no other. What she wanted was friends with whom she could do normal school things, and only think of magic when she was back at home. For some reason, Sebastian and his mother had recently had dinner at Tuuri's house. The uncle who had married into the family had mentioned having been able to befriend his husband despite initially not believing magic, but that he had almost ruined said friendship and the romance it had been slowly turning into at the time by deeply misunderstanding the bigger implications. Sebastian knew that he wanted to stay friends with Tuuri, at least for now. The adults around him told him that he was still young and had plenty of time to make his mind up about magic. But he really wondered how friendship was supposed to turn into love. Tuuri just chuckled when he asked her if magic was involved.

Thanks to the other Lalli, Reynir's other self had become aware of him. Having already spent five years literally sharing a mind with someone else while being aware of every single moment of it, he wanted to sever the link between the two of them as soon as possible, all while thanking Reynir for the thought behind his interventions. Fortunately, a variant on the process that had separated the other world's Reynir and the other world's Helena's minds had done the trick. While Reynir had secretly hoped to get a glimpse of the upcoming wedding from a good seat, he quickly decided that it was probably best for his other self to have his mind all back to himself before it happened if this was what he wanted.

Lalli had to admit that those mental visits to the other world would be at the very least a good stop-gap solution until Tuuri was sufficiently trained to block the voices out on her own. He insisted upon being present each time she visited her "aunt", even though the two of them had come up with a system that limited the sharing of time-sensitive information that seemed to work while their meetings were still secret. However, Lalli supervising the visits, if only nominally, had been insisted upon by Onni when he had agreed for them continue. Tonight, Reynir happened to be present also, and was telling the younger Tuuri a few stories involving the other world's first Silent World expedition. The story currently being narrated involving a small beast somehow getting inside the tank had caught Lalli's attention, after an indeterminate period of time spent listening with only half an ear.  
-And Sven stabbed the thing right in the head. He somehow didn't get scratched or bitten, but Mikkel was _so_ furious. Sven just pointed out that even if he wasn't immune, it was still a better idea than doing nothing and risking one of us getting bitten anyway. Helena stopped calling him "King of Boringland" for three days after that. She actually spent one of them sleeping, but still.  
Two things Lalli had been wondering about, the second being how Sven could have ever attracted a hunter-mage's attention, explained in a few sentences. Lalli spent the rest of the visit reminding himself that he had spared his other self _only_ of Tuuri's bite in the first Silent World expedition and that any similar circumstances that could befall him in the future were out of Lalli's control.

Lalli wasn't sure how to breach the subject with Onni. A few days after putting effort in avoiding an encounter between him and Tuuri-Ensi, Lalli had realized that he wasn't entirely sure that Onni didn't know about her. Onni's other self had visited their world exactly once before being asked to not come back, by Onni himself. As the other Onni had used the same channels as Lalli's other self for his visit, Lalli only had his own Onni's words in terms of knowledge of what the two of them had discussed that day. And even then, he had admitted that his other self had something to do with him getting around asking Cecilia out after years of not wanting to ruin the friendship they had built despite Onni being allegedly too busy running the family to have time for anything besides his job. If he knew about Tuuri-Ensi, making him aware of her visits may not be such a bad idea after all, if only to avoid hiding more from him than strictly necessary. Lalli struggled to bring his mind back to the initial thought to which Onni's awareness of Tuuri-Ensi had become a tangent gone out of control: his discomfort at continuing to keep Sven in the dark about the other world. That feeling in itself had come from…  
-Hey, are you two back to experimenting new reporting systems or having a stealth date?  
-I'm not sure these two things are mutually exclusive where these two are concerned.  
-Come on, both people are supposed to have a good time on a date. I'm kind of surprised Lalli hasn't fallen asleep out of boredom yet.  
From Sven, it had felt like the kind of simple statement of facts that Lalli himself gave other people once in a while. From Tuuri-Ensi, it had been a legitimate surprise at a difference between him and his other self, who had gotten a major motivation to start paying more attention to books in the first place. From the other skalds, it was often accompanied by remarks even he could understand as meaning that they considered him having no business staying in the same room as them for a longer than it was necessary for him to hand his scouting report in. Lalli had tried ignoring them at first, but he had more and more trouble not thinking of the fact that he probably wouldn't be getting those remarks if he had been his other self. This, combined with the fact that the man he was finding himself wanting to spend more and more time with was a bookish person, had increasingly made him consider trying to look into books a little more, but having no idea what to start with; Tuuri, Onni and Sven's favorites had all been unappealing to him for different reasons, and the latter of the three has strongly advised him to start with something he was actually interested in reading about. Tuuri-Ensi's troubles had the merit of having made him choose books and read them, in spite of the worry that had come with them. Back in the present, Sven handed him a corrected report for the fifth time in the morning:  
-How about now?  
Lalli scanned the report as attentively as he could, considering he had now been off his shift long enough for the fatigue so far kept at bay by moving around to start to creeping in. Sven spoke again:  
-Looks like the first thing we need to fix is how long doing things this way is taking.  
Lalli gave him a light nod and let out a little yawn while giving him the report back:  
-Looks good. See you tonight.

As the only Finnish mages living full-time in Mora, Lalli and Tuuri had been the only people available to help find a way to make the radio-wave based anti-troll system be less harmful to any Finnish mages staying in town. While the system was also harmful to Norwegian mages, who had a small permanent contingent of their own in town, the new people in charge of the system preferred avoiding the risk of testing the modifications on only one type of mage, only to find out the seemingly beneficiary ones were still harmful to the other type. Tuuri's young age also made so that no other children needed to participate:  
-How about this frequency?  
Lalli, Tuuri and the day-shifter among the Norwegian mages in town all waited a few moments before nodding, to which the research team's new leader responded ecstatically, only to calm down to something more neutral:  
-The good news is that I think I know what we can do from here. The bad news is that we will need to test many other factors before I can implement it, and even one of them not working out will mean I need to figure out an entirely new solution. But for now, the least I can do is let you all go home early.

xxxx

Things had worked out, somehow. On one hand, both Lalli and Tuuri had agreed that they would not visit the other world's Tuuri for three days. On the other, Reynir and Helena had both been growing frustrated over the fact that their last three trips to Mora had been work-related and longing for one on which bringing their daughter, who was just a couple years younger than Tuuri, was an option. In private, Reynir had admitted that he was going to need something to keep his mind off the wedding happening in the other world and to have correctly assumed Lalli was going to be in need of something similar. The gathering had turned into a playdate for both young girls and as much of a dinner party as Lalli could handle for the adults. Being both in the loop as to the real reason of the gathering, Emil and Helena made sure that both Lalli and Reynir would be too tired to go anywhere, even in the dream world, by the time they fell asleep.

Tuuri couldn't help but smirk all the way through the passage to the other world, and her "aunt's" quarters. In the midst of making extra-sure they wouldn't be going anywhere tonight, Lalli and Reynir had foolishly assumed an entire evening playing with Janine would be enough where she was concerned. The safe area seemed to be deserted, and she made sure to spend a few moments with her ear glued to a specific room's door before she snuck into it. The spell that let one make a copy of a real-world object that could be brought into any other safe area was a minor one compared to what she was used to trying without Lalli's guidance but had been more than enough to suit her needs. The fact that the Tuuri she was named after had been the main photographer during the first Silent World expedition had meant that there had been only a few photos _of_ her. Among the handful that _had_ been made, a single one had come across as something that would make a nice wedding gift for her but had the misfortune of not existing in the other world. She left the photograph in an envelope in a place where it would be easily found, and quickly left.

Having woken up early and found himself unable to go back to sleep, Lalli went to his study, and grabbed the book dedicated to Tuuri's photos that he had gotten published a few years ago, sat at his desk, and opened it at a specific page, near the end, where all the photos of Tuuri that had been taken by either a bored Mikkel or a curious Reynir were. One of them was Tuuri working at the office desk, unmistakably wearing her expedition uniform. The portion of the U-shaped desk to her right was occupied by Reynir, who was using it as a seat and focused on either drawing of writing something on a notepad. It had been the only photo of just the two of them ever taken. The original photo was in the house as well, but Lalli didn't want to risk damaging it or any of the others with which it was carefully stored with his tears.


End file.
